Released in late 1967, Wild Honey marks the first time the Beach Boys had incorporated elements of soul and R&B into their classic California sound. As the follow-up to the ill-fated and poorly received (at the time) Smiley Smile, there was a lot of pressure on the band to rebound with a hit and Wild Honey did the trick very nicely, earning rave reviews and going on to become one of the most respected and acclaimed Beach Boys albums.

After the Smile sessions shut down, the Beach Boys became much more of a band than they had been in the mid-’60s. They began playing most of their own instruments on record for the first time since 1963, and Brian Wilson was no longer nearly as dominant a production mastermind. The problem was, as Wilson increasingly withdrew from a leadership role (and, subsequently, from the real world altogether), the Beach Boys were revealed as a group that, although capable of producing some fine and interesting music, were no longer innovators on the level of the Beatles and other figureheads. Wild Honey had a looser, funkier feel than any previous Beach Boys effort, at times approaching a kind of bleached-out white soul. The resulting music was often quite pleasant, for the great harmonies if nothing else, but the material and arrangements were quite simply thinner than they had been for a long time. The record does feature a nice Top 20 hit in “Darlin’” (even if it was a rewrite of a song that had been composed four years earlier, and recorded by Sharon Marie). The small hit single “Wild Honey,” with its seductive theremin lines, was also a highlight, and “Here Comes the Night” (a group original, not the Them hit) also had a lot of appeal. But much of the rest was pleasing but inessential. ~~AllMusic Review by Richie Unterberger

Tracklist:
1 Wild Honey 02:40
2 Aren’t You Glad 02:19
3 I Was Made To Love Her 02:08
4 Country Air 02:22
5 A Thing Or Two 02:43
6 Darlin’ 02:15
7 I’d Love Just Once To See You 01:51
8 Here Comes The Night 02:41
9 Let The Wind Blow 02:22
10 How She Boogalooed It 01:56
11 Mama Says 01:06